Leon Engler & Benjamin Maack

In the organizer's words:

When Benjamin Maack experiences another episode of depression in spring 2025, he keeps a diary on Instagram. He types it into his phone, on the sofa, in doctors' waiting rooms before picking his children up from school. In job applications, he reflects on his thoughts and feelings in writing and talks about how confusing and difficult it is to live and love with depression, and how it can still be successful.

Leon Engler also approaches the psyche through writing in his debut novel Botanik des Wahnsinns (Botany of Madness). The narrator looks at the biography of his family: his grandmother is bipolar, has attempted suicide twelve times, his mother is an alcoholic, his father is depressed. And he looks at his own path: his early fear of going mad and how he ended up in an asylum after all - as a psychologist.

• Benjamin Maack, born in 1978, published the bestseller Wenn das noch geht, kann es nicht so schlimm sein in 2020, a book about his depression, which was named "Book of the Year" at the Hamburg Literary Awards, among others.
• Leon Engler, born in 1989, has published numerous plays, radio plays and short stories and was awarded the 3sat Prize at the Bachmann Competition in 2022. He works as an author, psychologist and lecturer in psychology and literary writing.

The event takes place in the accompanying program of the exhibition on mental health "Wie geht's?" (March 7, 2026 to April 4, 2027 at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum).